


Our Own Dreams

by Uchiha_Blood



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 16:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5011162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uchiha_Blood/pseuds/Uchiha_Blood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love confession gone wrong leads to Sasuke nearly losing it completely and Naruto being forced to fight him in order to save him!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Own Dreams

In order to sharpen and maintain his skills, Sasuke would often sneak into the woods outside Konoha and meet up with his childhood rival for a taijutsu-only sparring session. The strict use of taijutsu and basic fisticuffs was for the sake of trying NOT to kill each other or the forest around them. Of course, a few trees might be damaged, but it was all in the name of fun. At least, that's what Naruto called it.

"Okay, time out," Naruto declared in the heat of one of their mock battles, immediately flopping down in the grass that carpeted the clearing and somewhat softened their falls.

"C'mon, Sasuke. Take a load off. It's comfy down here," Naruto insisted, tugging at the edge of his friend's shirt.

Sasuke sighed, crouching down to be closer to the blond's level. "Happy?"

Naruto shoved him a bit, forcing him to sit down. "Now I am."

Sasuke grunted as he fell, shaking his head. Naruto wanted him to sit? Fine. He'd sit for a while. He sighed, leaning back on his hands and gazing up at the sky for a while. There wasn't a cloud in sight; the bright blue was almost blinding but the color was a familiar one. It was the same brilliant hue as Naruto's eyes.

"Sasuke, um, we need to talk..." 

"Hm?" He hadn't been listening.

"We need to talk."

That was never a good thing to hear. Sasuke cursed inwardly as he turned to face the blond, hoping that his insecurities regarding whatever this situation was were well-hidden.

"Talk about what?" he asked.

"About, well, us."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just, well, um..."

"Spit it out, usaratonkachi."

"Okay, okay, um... I, this thing we have going here, meeting here once a week and punching each other silly, it's great, but I don't know how much longer I can keep this up..."

"You have a lot of work to do as Hokage. That's perfectly understandable," he said, nodding. Sure, he'd probably miss this, but Naruto didn't need to know that. He didn't need anything else to worry about.

"No, that's not it! Well, yeah, I guess it's part of it, but..." he began, not entirely sure what he wanted to say.

"But there's more," Sasuke finished, nodding again.

"Yeah. I guess, well, the easiest way to put it is, um... I miss you."

"You see me once a week. Is that not enough?" he asked coldly, feeling a wave of guilt washing over him. For some reason, though, it came out as anger.

"No, it's not. You're my best friend, and you mean a lot to me. Just seeing you every once in a while like this hurts more than it helps. I'd almost rather not see you at all."

"If that's all you wanted to say, then you should have said it sooner," he snapped, jumping to his feet, retrieving his coat from where it hung upon a branch, and striding off toward the woods. Away from Konoha.

"No, wait! Sasuke!" He started after him, but it was too late. Sasuke was gone. Now he'd probably never see him again.

Sasuke didn't make it much farther than the river before he lost it. All the desperation, sorrow, and regret came pouring out in a, quite literally, fiery rage. The black flames of Amaterasu burned strong, turning the forest around him into not much more than ashes. The flames kept burning, drowning out his maddening screams and creating a pillar of smoke that could be seen for miles around. This did not include Naruto, who by now had returned to Konoha and locked himself in the office of the Hokage Tower. 

He stared blankly out the window, feeling quite sorry for himself and not really seeing what he was seeing. He had failed to do what he had promised to do so many years before. He kept fighting his way closer and closer to Sasuke, and just when he thought he had made it, he messed it up. Now he knew he'd never see him again. He could feel his eyes begin to burn as they filled with tears, but it felt as though he was experiencing someone else's pain, seeing the world through someone else's eyes. Everything was black, everything was burning, everything hurt. The agony was too much. He screamed. His vision faded to black.

"Lord Uzumaki? Are you okay?"

"Lord Hokage!"

"Hokage-sama!"

Faint voices cut through the heavy mist, but they were so distant and echoey that he almost believed he imagined them. His head felt like an anvil, his limbs were of lead. Everything was so heavy, so thick, so impossible. He couldn't move. He didn't want to. He remembered now the sorrows that weighed heavily upon him, the loss of his dearest friend. All he wanted now was to sink into the mist and disappear.

Smack!

Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, he was slapped full across the face. He groaned, blinking in the bright light. 

"Snap out of it, Naruto!" Sakura barked, bringing her hand back to strike him again.

"I'm awake, I'm awake!" He sat up. "See? No need to slap me."

"Okay, good. Now, what's all this screaming and fainting about anyway?" 

Naruto chuckled, rubbing his poor cheek. He was used to Sakura's occasional fits of violence, and, being a friend, she had special permission to smack him silly when he was being stupid. He had been stupid, he knew that. He definitely deserved that slap.

"I was gonna talk to him today. I did, actually, but it came out all wrong and now he thinks I hate him. He thinks I never wanna see him again."

Sakura had been the first to notice something odd about Naruto's habits. Every Friday morning, he would leave his house early in the morning and not return to his office until noon, often with several minor scrapes and bruises. Luckily, thanks to Kurama, he healed quickly, but his medic-nin friend had still noticed. She had also noticed that upon returning, he would always be in a better mood than when she had last seen him the day before. Of course, she had asked about it, and Naruto had confessed. For the past several months, he had been meeting Sasuke in a clearing for a good sparring session, and during that time, strange feelings he had first noticed soon after his friend had first left the village had grown stronger. He was in love.

Of course, no one else knew about this, making for quite a confused audience. Sakura, however, knew exactly what he meant.

"Ah, that explains why you look so sad, but it doesn't explain why you screamed and fainted."

"I was sitting by the window feeling like a lump of shit in a box when suddenly my vision went all crazy. There were black flames everywhere, and everything hurt and I guess that's when I screamed."

"Black flames?!" Sakura asked, leaping to the window. Sure enough, she could see the plumes of smoke rising from a spot near the river. "Naruto, you idiot! Black flames!"

Black flames? What did black flames have to do with any of this? 

Oh. 

Right.

Black flames. Amaterasu. Sasuke.

He got up immediately, ignoring the throbbing pulse in his head that blurred his peripheral vision. Pushing confused and concerned bystanders aside, he ran down the stairs and out of the tower. He took a shortcut across the rooftops, praying he wouldn't be too late. He really didn't want to see anything blackened other than Sasuke's hair and clothes. 

Soon, he approached the river, darting between the trees at the terrifying speed that he had inherited from his father. He could see the black flames clearly now, a wall of fire encircling a dark figure. The figure was on his knees, cursing the heavens with a passion as fiery as the flames surrounding him. Flames that burned everything in their path save for whatever the wielder deemed fit to salvage.

"Sasuke! SASUKE!" he screamed, but he could scarcely hear his own voice over the roaring, crackling flames. Sasuke definitely wouldn't hear him.

"Ah, man, this is gonna hurt..." he whispered, then steeled himself against the pain. Hopefully, his speed would be enough to get him through. He ran. Right through the flames. He made it. 

His friend's back was to him, his head thrown back in a blood-chilling howl of despair. Pale hands tugged violently at thick black hair as his entire body was wracked by every sob. All the pain of the past ten years of his life, bottled up each time by pure brute force and stubbornness, came ripping ferociously from his throat as it was all released at once. He had lost control of his body, thrashing violently, pounding, clawing at the scorched earth.

"Sasuke, please, just listen to me!" Naruto cried, throwing himself at his friend in a desperate attempt to calm him down. 

"Don't touch me!" Sasuke screamed, throwing him off with a single blow. 

Naruto landed with a thud, frighteningly close to the black flames. In fact, one inch further would have put him in the hot seat for sure. Before he could move, however, he was tugged back onto his feet. Sasuke stepped back, poised to attack. He wanted to spar again.

"You wanna fight, huh? Okay, we can do that. But I think we need a bigger arena," Naruto said carefully, not wanting to unleash the full extent of Sasuke's wrath. 

"A bigger arena, you say? Fair enough." With a massive roar, the black flames ate away at the forest, turning it into a black, ashy arena, about the same size as the one in the center of Konoha. 

"That's better. Now for the rules. No genjustu, ninjutsu, or senjutsu. Just taijutsu and basic hand-to-hand. I won't use Kurama's power, and you won't use Susano'o. If I win, I get to tell you what I really wanted to say this morning, and you get to decide if you wanna leave forever or come back to Konoha with me."

"If I win, I choose your fate." The dark, almost seductive tone of his voice reminded Naruto of Itachi, the way he manipulated people to do his bidding with his eyes and his temptingly deceiving voice.

"Sounds fair."

"Good. Blades?"

"No blades."

"Hn. Ready?"

"Come at me, bro."

"I am not your brother!" Sasuke spat, leaping into the air for a swift kick to the head. 

Naruto ducked, avoiding the blow easily and reaching out to grab Sasuke's leg and bring him down to the ground. The Uchiha, however, twisted out of his grasp and landed in a crouch, skidding several feet before leaping blindly into his next attack. Naruto managed to avoid that as well, but only just. This wasn't Sasuke's usual careful fighting style, watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. These attacks were careless and inconsistent, a waste of energy. 

Naruto smirked. If Sasuke continued to fight like this, he wouldn't need to go on the offensive at all. All he had to do was keep dodging, and at this rate, also taking into account the fact that Sasuke was maintaining the wall of flames around them and drained significantly from crying, this would be easy. This was evident not only in his tear-streaked face, but in the fact that each failed tackle became weaker and weaker with every passing moment. True, Naruto wasn't in the best of shape at the moment, what with the lump on his head sustained from his earlier collapse, but he had a significant advantage over his friend.

"Fight me, you coward!" Sasuke snarled as he yet again threw himself in Naruto's general direction. 

"And for what? It will do no good for either of us," Naruto replied calmly, stepping out of the way as if avoiding a puddle in the street.

"You are pathetic. Fight me like a man."

"You are the one fighting me like an animal."

"Graaaaaahhhhh!"

"See? Animal."

Sasuke tensed, then slowly sat down as he realized that Naruto was right. He was nothing more than an animal right now. A monster. Was this really how far he had fallen? Was he nothing more than a cursed creature destined to terrify all those who came across his path? Could he not free himself from this fate and redeem his name and that of his clan? In his despair, he let the flames flicker and die along with his rage.

Naruto immediately crouched next to him, one hand resting on his friend's shoulder. Sasuke's face was buried in his hands, humiliated and downtrodden. Saying nothing, Naruto just sat down, staying close. He didn't know what to say, and even if he did, he'd probably just mess it all up again. Simply being there would have to be comfort enough.

"You win... Again..." Sasuke said after a while, keeping his head down to hide his face. He didn't like people seeing him cry.

"Yeah, I guess I did."

"What did you want to tell me?" he asked, cringing at his raspy voice. It must have been the screaming. 

"Can I just show you? Talking doesn't work for me today, I don't think."

"Show me? How do you mean?"

"Well, I kinda gotta show you to show you, if that makes any sense."

"Mm. Go ahead, then."

Naruto gulped, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. If he messed this up, it was all over. Gently, he reached out to lift a rather uneasy Sasuke's chin and guide his face into the light. Smears of ash streaked his pale skin, further smudged by the tears that now slid down his cheeks. He smiled reassuringly as Sasuke's timid, darting eyes met his for a moment, flashed away, then back again. Keeping ahold of his gaze, Naruto rubbed some of the soot from his friend's cheek. Then, quickly, before he could react, he planted a swift smooch on the smooth, pale skin.

Sasuke gasped as soon as he realized what Naruto was intending to do, then fell silent as the weight of his actions and the meaning they held hit him. Naruto liked him. Loved him, even. Hell, he cared enough about him to chase him all over the world, risk his life to protect him, and come out here just to see him. The kiss was a bonus. And not just for Naruto, he soon realized, as his cheeks turned a brilliant shade of red. Fighting back his shock and embarrassment, he managed to choke out a response.

"If you're going to kiss me, then kiss me," he whispered, unable to meet the shining sapphire eyes that filled with tears as he spoke.

"You asked for it," Naruto warned, then pounced.

"This isn't a kiss," Sasuke thought. "This is a full-blown makeout session. And I kinda like it."


End file.
